Maurizio Cattelan has arrived at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie with his new exhibition, Night. The show occupies the vast, modernist space of the museum and offers a survey of themes such as death, faith, violence, and uncertainty. Cattelan, known for his ability to provoke and unsettle, brings together both iconic older works and new installations to challenge the audience's perceptions.
A Confrontation with History
Central to the exhibition is the 2001 sculpture titled Him. It depicts Adolf Hitler kneeling in a pose often associated with prayer. Viewed from the rear, the figure appears small and childlike, but a full circuit around the piece reveals the dictator’s face. The sculpture, which sold at auction in 2016 for 15 million euros, remains a point of contention. Lisa Botti, a co-curator of the exhibition, notes that the work continues to resonate in current political contexts. It forces viewers to question whether the figure is seeking forgiveness or merely performing a gesture, leaving the true intent intentionally ambiguous.
Symbols of Power and Collapse
The exhibition also recontextualizes familiar imagery to examine the nature of authority. Cattelan includes a scaled-down version of the Brandenburg Gate in his work Purgatory, while his piece titled People fills the ceiling with hundreds of stuffed pigeons. These installations disrupt the visitor's sense of scale and institutional surroundings. Another significant inclusion is Novecento, a sculpture featuring an exhausted horse suspended from the ceiling. Botti explains that the horse, typically a symbol of military prestige and nobility, is rendered weak and drained, highlighting the inevitable decay of power structures.
A Legacy of Provocation
Beyond the walls of the Neue Nationalgalerie, the exhibition extends with the work Never, featuring a mechanical boy beating a drum on the museum roof. This piece draws inspiration from the novel The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. Throughout his career, Cattelan has challenged traditional boundaries of taste and value. He achieved global notoriety with Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for 5.2 million euros in 2024. Another famous work, the solid gold toilet titled America, gained international headlines following its high-profile theft from Blenheim Palace in 2019.
Looking Ahead
Night offers a more somber tone than some of the artist's previous displays. The title hints at both a period of darkness and the potential for a new dawn. By placing these works in Berlin, a city with a complex relationship to its own past, the exhibition asks viewers to confront their own responses to provocative imagery. The collection will remain on display at the Neue Nationalgalerie until March 2027. Future visitors should expect a challenging encounter that balances artistic dark humor with deeper historical resonance.